Fake internet "news archives" cost Universal Pictures $22,500

Universal Pictures has reached a settlement with a handful of Alaska newspapers, including the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, for using fabricated “news archives” to promote a recently released movie...

...Universal agreed to pay $20,000 to the Alaska Press Club, along with a $2,500 contribution to a scholarship fund for the Bethel-based Calista Corp...

...Universal created an elaborate series of online news articles in the promotion for its movie, “The Fourth Kind.” The movie claims to be a true story about a plague of alien abductions in Nome a decade ago...

Why real new organizations might be upset about someone using their names in fake stories about a "plague" of alien abductions remains a genuine mystery.